Shyamalamadingdong...

Greg and I went to see The Village last night. It was odd...we saw many of the flaws that the critics talked about, yet at the same time we were indeed tense and frightened by the build up--the cinematography is incredible and the music really heightens the mood. We knew there was a twist and looked hard for it. To some extent I suspected, but I never suspected the full thing--once it was revealed in its entirety, everything that had gone before made sense. Every perceived flaw of the film or the acting had a purpose and made total sense.

I really think that had the critics stayed to watch the very end, they wouldn't have panned it so badly. Or maybe if they'd ever been in a situation that would make one consider it, they wouldn't find it so far-fetched either.

Much Better Now

Sunday was...well, you know how they say there are the "stages of grief" and sometimes it takes a while to get through them all? Well, with a little push from the latest terror alert, I hit anger with a vengence yesterday.

Let's just say that we now know that if you throw a bottle of Sam Adams hard enough, glass shards will stick in the door frame. I'm just relieved I chose the bottle over the baseball bat--washing everything that was splattered is one thing, replacing smashed stuff is another.

Then we went to dinner--it was very nice to get out, plus I owed Greg a beer--and watched The Mask of Zorro, ever a fine flick.

Five Rules

We went to see Dodgeball last night--it was my turn to choose the movie--and I can honestly say I have not laughed out loud at a movie so much in years.  WAY better than Anchorman, and not  only because you don't have to remember 1970s newsrooms to get the jokes.  While they're often running, Dodgeball has more than one and they are of various levels of humor/degrees of funny--there's some "Something About Mary" stuff, but luckily there's much more than that.  If you enjoy watching people being hit by flying objects, this is the movie for you. 

The ADAA sportscasters played by Gary Cole and Jason Bateman are hilarious--Cole drops inappropriate historical/political references into his commentary such as: "The German team just blitzkrieged onto the court, trying to extend their dodgeball empire to the U.S.--Appeasement be damned!" and my favorite: "It looks like they've really dropped the A-Bomb on the Japanese team!" 

The cameos are freaking brilliant including gems from William Shatner and several others that, like a red rubber ball, hit harder if you don't know they're coming.   So as you go about your day, remember people: Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and...Dodge.

 

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

So after a really crappy start to my Tuesday involving losing a contact behind my eye, white flies on my tomato plants, getting cursed out by a crazy homeless woman and two work crises, one of which required defending myself at length, I received a phone call.  From SuJi.  My long lost college friend.  Okay, she wasn't lost, she's just been living in Seoul for the past 10 years.  She's calling from a payphone at the Met Museum of Art.  She's in town for 36 hours, do I want to have lunch tomorrow?

The answer to that is YES in spades!  This is so cool, I've got to tell Bda.  So I email her the news and then as an afterthought ask if there's any way she could ditch work and join us, really not believing that this is going to happen, not with a seriously demanding job, two small boys and the expense of the train up from D.C.--but the effort has to be made.  90 minutes later she responds that both her boss and her (happily) most benevolent and beneficent husband have agreed to her day of playing hooky. 

Bda arrives around 11, walks to my office.  We go to meet SuJ at Barnes and Noble.  SuJi does not know that B is joining us.   I approach her, give her a hug and tell her that I hope she doesn't mind, but I invited someone else to lunch.  She pulls back and says, "Oh, your boyfriend?" I step back and B steps forward.  There were many shrieks in the B&N.

Great afternoon: good lunch/crappy sangria at Pipa, lots of chatting/catching up, wandering to Washington Square Park,  took B to Penn to catch her train back.  SuJ and I then wandered up to Bryant Park and hung out for another couple of hours before she had to meet up with her host and I went home.

Awesome afternoon.  Awesome surprise.  We'll have to try another mini-reunion like this in another 10 years, or hopefully a little sooner.

 

Dilemma -- NOT the Ultimate One

Did anybody see that Bush&Co stopped for a cone at Leon's on his swing through the 'hood on Wednesday?  (That question was not directed at atom--I'm sure he somehow heard.) 
 
My question:  Can I still get my traditional turtle sundae the next time I go home, or do I have to avoid the place forever?   After reading about it in the Northwestern online, I also read about it in the NY Times and I'm sure it made the Washington Post too.  My fears are as follows: 
 
1) The place will be mucked up with Republicans on pilgrimage to visit the shrines of Bush-dom.  (I know the majority of the regular patrons are Republicans, but they live there.) 
 
2) The custard may well have soured. 

Bereft

Over my lunch hour I finished the final book in a King Arthur trilogy (The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur written by Bernard Cornwell) that I've been reading over the last month. It was a bloody, bloody series, filled with action and adventure and I've enjoyed it immensely, but the end has me absolutely devastated. My chest hurts from the sadness. I choke on it.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

The editor of Forbes-Russia was murdered Friday. Forbes and the editor had just been acquitted from a British liable suit for implying that a certain Russian businessman was a mobster. Even the British courts had to say that nothing in the article/book in question was unsubstantiated. He was shot 4 times, execution style, as he left his office on Friday.

Steve Forbes himself wrote the story about it. I overheard that the order came down that absolutely no one on the payroll was to touch the copy or even open the file. It was edited by a freelance editor and was put through the system by an independent contractor at the .com. Evidently they were going to be very careful that no one else directly connected to the company was going to be involved.

Star Sighting!!!!

I saw Julia Roberts this morning on my way into work. Dear God, the woman has a big mouth. Seriously, if she could unhinge her jaws, she could ingest an elephant.

I'm sure you're interested in my weekend, so I'll tell you...

Friday night: Greg went to a play with Joe, I stayed home and did very little. This was good.

Saturday: Cleaned out the refrigerator, did dishes, exterminator came, went to Farmer's market, evacuated the apartment for rest of day: stopped in a vintage clothing store that Greg decompresses in on our way to the subway--stayed for over an hour. Then continued our journey up to Natural History to see "The Lost City of Petra" before it closed. (You know, the sandstone buildings in Jordan carved into the cliffs.) REALLY cool exhibit. First good temporary exhibit I've been to there. After we grilled out. Really nice day.

Sunday: Made brownies for Joe's cookout while watching Secondhand Lions and crying. How is it the sum of all the ingredients was not half so heavy as the final pan? Was it my tears, like "In Water for Chocolate" or was it the almost two pounds of Ghiradelli chocolate melted into the things?

At four went to our neighbors' cookout, having spoken to them every other day for over a year, we finaly introduced ourselves. He's Welsh/British and speaks entirely in British slang--no clue what he's talking about, but she's way cool, I could definitely see hanging with them in the future.

Went to Joe's in Jersey City, mostly really nice time, fireworks a little disappointing (plus seeing smoke pouring from Lower Manhattan is still disturbing), cats a little wheeze-inducing. He has a really cool "mountain climbing" exercise machine that was tons of fun to use--that's right, burgers, dogs and exercise machines. Overall fun. Home at 3 AM.

Monday: slept WAY in. Humid, rainy, mellow in house day. Went to see De-Lovely last night as mystery shoppers for Loews. I'll never hear a Cole Porter tune again without crying--sobbed through most of the movie. Greg did too. Overall, I thought it was a great movie, other than the casting of a guy who couldn't dance to play Nijinsky. Greg thought it was well done but hated it for the emotional manipulation. (He doesn't like the crying in the slightest.) "Kiss Me Kate", the musical he wrote while his wife was dying, now has entirely new meanings. Came home and watched Uncle Buck to recover.

Tuesday: Here I am and there you are...fascinated and relieved I've posted once again.

Lapsed Manners

I got a "so nice to see you" email from V this morning and I have yet to send her a thank you note for lunch!

Crap! Crap! Crap!

Brit-knee

So, Britney Spears had to cancel her latest tour due to a "severe knee injury". What they didn't tell anyone is how she received it.

Greg ran into a guy in a bar on Saturday night who was a lighting tech for the video shoot at which she was injured. Evidently, she wanted these flat light gels (they give a disco floor effect) all over the floor of the set--it would be funkier that way. The lighting people tried to dissuade her because they're very slippery and it's quite dangerous if people are attempting to dance on them, but she'd have none of it. Then she decided they should be all over the stairs too. Now this is where they really tried to stop her 'cause if every surface is covered with flashing light squares, you lose all sense of perspective. But she was insistent that it would be all be fine. Well, evidently she stepped off into nothing because she couldn't tell where the floor was, thus falling and hurting her knee, requiring surgery, a three-month recovery period and the cancellation of her tour.

And this is why it pays to pay attention to the professionals.

Mr. Jack done me wrong...or maybe it was right...

Wandered solo over to Madison Square Park late on Saturday (Greg was in the Bronx) where the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party was going on--big fest with barbecue champions from around the country with proceeds being split between the Park and VH1's Save the Music. I had a little pulled pork, listened to some New Orleans style jazz. Lovely way to while away an hour or two.

Sunday I dragged Greg out at noon to go back. He was less than happy waiting in line for the first round of 'cue, but once we had food it was all good. We sat on the grass in the shade and listened to jazz all afternoon while critiquing the parenting styles of those around us/being amused by a toddler with a balloon tied to her shoe laces and sipping Lynchburg Lemonades from across the street, getting up only to sample another type of 'cue. Lovely, lovely afternoon.

Unfortunately the lemonades packed quite a punch and things did get a little ugly. Greg came back with our second drink and dropped the comemorative shot glass into my bag directly on top of the first, shattering it. His phone rang and he answered as I started fishing the shards out, I yelped, pulled out my bloody hand and he was forced to say, "I have to call you back, I just cut Tina with a shot glass." The bleeding stopped fairly quickly and Greg sanitized the wound by sticking my hand in our drink. Fortunately, the lemonades packed quite a punch and the pain didn't interfere with the last hour or so of the music.

More amusing yet: when Greg returned the abreviated phone call, I heard him respond matter-of-factly: "What do you think happened? We're at a Blues Fest and my woman done me wrong so I had to cut her with a shot glass."

Yup, we had 3 drinks between the two of us and we were in bed and asleep at 8pm. Of course, we were up at 2 watching Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, eating dried apricots and drinking a LOT of water.

V update

So, I went to lunch and it was rather pleasant, despite the fact that it was two hours of dodging probing questions about others while at the same time being uninteresting enough that it was impossible for her to listen to a full sentence about my life without breaking off on a tangent. Hmmm, usually that was Mr. Harrell's domain.

As for V no. 2: I vacuumed under our bed for the first time since we moved in 2.5 years ago, believe it or not, I had to empty the trap several times. To save time I kept pulling the plastic dust catch off of the machine and taking it out onto the deck to empty it. As I was doing it the final time, I stuck my hand in to scrape out some dirt that was stuck to the bottom.

Ummm, did you know that lightning is really just static electricity? I certainly didn't because had I known, I really would not have stuck my hand in a plastic container in which dust and synthetic carpet fiber cyclone around. I got a shock in my right hand that I felt go through my upper chest and out my left. My right hand tingled for the next half hour. It was absolutely crazy. As I was talking to a neighbor later, she asked if I'd heard a scream shortly before--she'd looked out, but didn't see anything. Um, yeah, that was me.

A Voice from the Past

Okay, so I'm having lunch this Friday with my high school honor's English teacher from junior and senior years.

Last Saturday, the phone rang. A woman said, "Tina? This is a voice out of your past. Do you recognize it?" Ummmm, no. "It's G. V." "Omigod, Mrs. V.!" At this, Greg, in the living room, makes "symbolism" hands.

The long and short:

My mom ran into her a couple of weeks ago at the Gilded Lily (now under the sole proprietorship of Marilyn) and the chit-chatting commenced. Gladys was deLIGHTed that I live in New York, and wondered if she might have my number. My mother reached into her bag and pulled out my business card. (I'm a bit flummoxed by the fact that my mom carries around my business cards--I don't carry my business cards.)

She's in town for a week starting Thursday for Maris' 50th birthday. She'll be meeting me at "Steak Frites" for lunch on Friday. "Old age has been good to [her] except for [her] back; so it's better if [she] can just walk in to the restaurant." I chose the place: moderately priced, good wine list (I'm gonna need some wine), good classic and modern bistro fare, interesting architectural design, close to my office and best of all, the pretention of an entire menu in French (and we know how much she dislikes the French) even when describing the "Union Square Farmers Market salad of the day".

I must say I'm a bit nervous about all this--it took two hours to compose the email about the reservation and then I had Gillespie review it. It's rather difficult writing in a professional and grownup manner to someone who knew you before you were either. I chickened out and invited both Susy and Jennifer to join us. They both declined.

To be sure I don't run out of subject matter, I've been printing out copies of key writings in my life lately: 1) the revised vision statement of derision; 2) Greg's Face for Richard Grasso in which he alluded to Julius Caesar so he could slam the guy without getting in trouble; perhaps David's description of his landlord's father killing caterpillars. Hey, she's going to tell me all about Debbie Yates' journal from India and I was never even friends with her--I'm hoping beyond hope that Mrs. V. got it wrong and it's Anne's journal or it's going to be excruciating.

Alas Maris and his wife will not be joining us although they live in Chelsea only 8 blocks from us, but dare I dream of accompanying Mrs. V to Steuben glass to pick up his present?

"I saw a sailor and thought of you..."

Okay, so it was Fleet Week here in New York--all the ships come sailing into the harbor (quite a sight) and all the sailors come skipping through the City (also quite a sight). Think Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Frank Sinatra, but without the singing in harmony.

Now, as you can imagine, most New Yorkers and the military NOT on particularly good terms at the moment. Kinda tensed for ugly scenes for most of the weekend. Let me take you to Washington Square Park--traditional home of the anti-war movement--on Sunday night: As Greg and I are strolling through we see a Navy officer approaching the circle of 70s/80s musicians who jam there every weekend. An aging hippie moves to intercept the officer. We start moving away, bracing for the "baby-killer" confrontation. The exchange:

AH: You want a cookie?
NO: Thanks, I'm from NYC you know.
AH: Well, I just wanted to say THANK YOU for what you're doing. Oh, I'm against this war, you know. But you're putting yourself on the line for the country and you should know that we do appreciate that.

Damn near fell over in shock.

Now a question, most likely for Mephisto: He may have been from New York, but his country of origin was someplace else. This guy was not in a US Navy uniform--he had light blue epaulettes. What country would that be for? I don't think it was fake either, 'cause he walked like a sailor.

Fieldwork again...

So, we've finished taking photos of the entrances of each building on 42nd Street for our Vision42 project. (Actually a cool premise, take a look.) Next step, clocking the time it takes to get from the street to subway platforms along the same route--it all goes into the travel time savings for workers if they can just step on a street level light rail vs. going down into the subway.

Fine, we can start on it next week, but there's only one problem: SECURITY. A couple of my colleagues were detained for some time while doing a landuse survey around the entrance to the Queens/Midtown Tunnel and Naja and I had a bit of a brush with the police when photographing an area around Grand Central, in fact, we were told "NO PICTURES" and to leave. This was on the street, can you imagine what it's going to be like IN the tunnels? However, the work still needs to be done.

Now, don't get me wrong--I'm really glad security is as tight as it is. It really should be given the world situation. I'm just not looking forward to a task that is not going to be enjoyable in the least in the first place, coupled with the potential for unlimited detention as possible under the Patriot Act.

Hmmm...maybe I'll have Naja do the subway timing.

Field work in New York F***in' City

So yesterday, Naja and I got tired after 4 hours of looking for freight entrances on 42nd St. in the blazing heat, so we decided to time off-peak bus travel (another project requirement). Well, you think wandering around Port Authority with an exposed digital camera is dangerous? Try riding the damn bus.

We're sitting there, stop watch and notepad in our respective hands, and a rather obese woman with a metal cane sits behind us, one leg up on the seat beside her because, as she tells everyone, she just left the hospital after some surgery on her foot. A child with a coloring book sits next to her (small enough to fit on the leftover seat) and the woman spends the next leg of the trip sweetly commenting on what a gifted artist the child is--beautiful colors, composition, yada, yada, yada. The child and her mother leave a couple of stops later.

By the next stop, it's started to rain and the bus is suddenly jammed with people--mainly older tourists looking to escape the downpour. Well, an older, kinda scruffy looking guy takes offense that this woman is using two seats. She offers to move her leg over so he can sit on the edge, but he wants the whole seat. As they're talking, she becomes aggitated and is tapping her cane harder and harder on the back of our seat. Then it gets ugly. He's screaming, she's screaming back and suddenly, she's up on her knees swinging her cane at him with a LOT of force. The guy in the single seat across the way jumps up just in time to avoid the cane coming down on him. She's slamming the cane against her seat and the now-empty one across from her, making as much noise as she possibly can while she screams obscenities and some rather interesting insults at this guy. My favorite was "unwashed toothless bitch". Then she jumps up and starts jumping up and down (on both feet, mind you, despite her supposed surgery) while threatening to splatter his brains against the bus walls out with her cane/smash his remaining teeth up into his head/shoot him with her gun, if only she had it with her. At this point, I had to stop paying attention to what she was saying and pay attention to the cane: the follow-through on her swings had the thing coming within a few inches of my skull. There was no where to go. I had one arm up for protection and was actually touching her tricep at one point to make it NOT hit me. The guy ran off at the next stop--along with a large number of the tourists. She sits down, still screaming threats out the window about how if he ever shows his face on 42nd St again, her "bloods" will kill him.

She starts to calm until some woman sits on the edge and starts comisserating with her on how stupid the guy was--speaking of stupid... She starts to relive it all and the cane starts slamming on the back of our seat again. Then some idiot in the back of the bus loudly says "Gee, well this is New York City--more entertainment on the bus than in a theatre!" Okay, true, but you DO NOT say it within earshot of the crazy woman... She starts in again with "Entertainment!!! I'll give you EMS! This is fuckin' New York fuckin' City! Fuckin' entertainment...and the summer's just starting..."

I've never been so glad to see someone leave a bus in my life. I've never seen anyone freak like that. Naja said that since she's been riding the bus alone (since she was 10) she's never witnessed anything like it--and she was living here in the bad old days.

What the Hell?!!!

Okay, about the pictures from Iraq:

I know that I've never been in the situation where I'm constantly under fire, so I cannot know the context for those actions. However regardless of circumstance, the primary question that came to mind when looking at the photos was:

Are we freakin' Nazis?!!!

'Cause really, while I don't think we're going for all out genocide, the similarity to photos at the Holocaust Museum in DC was really disturbing.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

So here I am at 10:30 on a Thursday morning, typing from the comforts of home. I'm taking a personal day a.k.a trying to retain sanity. I've been thinking about it since finding out that Greg had this whole week off 'cause of holiday days that needed to be taken, but finding out at 3 yesterday that about 3 weeks worth of fieldwork needs to be finished next week pretty much capped it.

Oh, you may ask why I'm not getting started on it now. Well, the work entails mapping and taking digital images of all the primary and freight entrances of every building on 42nd Street. That's 13 LONG blocks through the very heart of Manhattan. It's something that one person cannot do well alone (lots of stuff to handle/keep track of) and since my partner for this is my boss' daughter who is out more often than in until next week due to finishing her latest Master's...

The one thing I could do alone, is time the walks from subway entrances to platforms for each entrance on the street, but I refuse to do that without a letter of explanation from the client. Unusual activity in the subway can cause some uncomfortable questioning and after some people I work with and their clients were detained by the police for 90 minutes because they were taking photos of the entrance to a tunnel... I'm not going in until my bases are covered.

But really, on to the sanity restoration...last night, we went to our favorite neighborhood Italian for a fabulous meal with a fabulous bottle of wine--Le Solive Connubio--lovely. It was amazing, rainy, romantic, the food was excellent, the music was mellow.

And today I intend to putter about, do a few chores, do a little smoochin', go to a movie at the Tribeca Film Festival, come home for the final episode of Friends...bliss.

To my friends: Enjoy your crappy workdays! HA!

Better places?

Once again the insanity of this place boggles my mind. The HR director is interviewing candidates for a janitorial position today. At an open table in the lobby. On the other side of the half-wall of our area.

Um....shouldn't an office be used for the interviewing process? Wouldn't the interviewer AND the interviewee find it distracting to be doing this within sight and sound of the lunchtime comings and goings of the 300-odd office staff? Also, shouldn't there be some consideration for the staff who work in the vicinity who are being subjected to really stupid questions repeated over and over again very slowly and, of course, very LOUDLY because few of the interviewees have English as their primary language?

Idiots abound. Truly.